(AllHipHop News) When Apple bought out Beats Electronics and the streaming service Beats Music earlier this year, it seemed the $3 billion price tag was partly because the name “Beats” had become a star in its own right. But according to Tech Crunch, the name “Beats Music” may disappear in the near future.
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The site first reported five different sources claim Apple was shutting down Beats Music altogether and moving its employee to other projects in the company. Apple has refuted that claim and suggests the Beats Music may just be rebranded.
Josh Constine for Tech Crunch writes:
Apple has told TechCrunch that our report of Beats being shut down “is not true”, but sources familiar with the situation tell Re/code that Apple “may, however, modify [Beats Music] over time, and one of those changes could involved changing the Beats Music brand.” This aligns with what my sources said, which is that the Beats Music brand will be shut down, but that it’s unclear what Apple wants to do in streaming music. It seems quite possible that the Beats Music product could be rolled into iTunes rather than being ‘shuttered’, but that’s semantics.
Beats jumped into the music streaming service prior to the Apple buyout. According to reports, Apple was more interested in the Beats headphones and pulling in co-founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine than the streaming application.
In May, Beats Music was reported to only have around 100,000 subscribers, and it has not become available overseas. The service is currently competing against Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, Rdio, Rhapsody, and Apple’s own iTunes Radio.
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